About

The Saucy Scholar brings together two of my most favorite things: critical cultural and textual analysis (academic class) with popular media/people/miasma (pop culture sass).

My name is Meredith Heller. Here I am:

I’m a Faculty Lecturer of Queer Studies in Women’s and Gender Studies at Northern Arizona University. I teach my students how to notice, critically assess, and persuasively explain what’s under the surface of cultural institutions, assumptions, and products. I do that by bringing in popular entertainment, current news, and digital media: Lady Gaga. Kardashian drama. The 100. Taylor Swift. Game of Thrones. Oh Game of Thrones.

I like to build transparency in how popular entertainment and culture promotes certain versions of normal life, good life, and ideal life. That’s what this blog is about. You get that, plus you get a salty dose of curse words.

Meredith Heller is a Faculty Lecturer of Queer Studies in Women’s and Gender Studies at Northern Arizona University. She holds a Ph.D. in Theater Studies and a doctoral emphasis in Feminist Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She specializes in critical identity studies, queer theory, digital media, and drag. Her book manuscript, What a Drag: Redefining Discourse on Gender-Bending, is forthcoming from Indiana University Press.